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Thursday, July 21, 2011

Stuck On Sleeve Island

I’m trying really hard not to be cranky-frustrated. What’s the point in fighting with inanimate objects? Just go with the flow. ommmm….

OK, that feels better now. I’ve been desperately trying to get the sleeves finished on my Amiga sweater and they just seem to argue with me every step of the way. You might ask why they are so difficult, since they are simple tubes, no shaping, 3/4 length. AKA piece o’cake. Not. The slippery doubled rayon yarn, large needle size relative to said yarn and knitting the sleeves picked up onto the body of the sweater means Trouble. I’ve tried every different combination of needles: bamboo dpns, long magic loop, short two circulars – and all of them feel too fiddly and leave unsightly ladders in the knitting. I managed to finish one sleeve and I’m halfway done the second but I’ve just switched back to dpns again:

Trying 4 this time instead of 5 which were just too heavy for the fabric. And too many points sticking everywhere. pfthhh! Can’t wait to pick up the front band/collar and just knit straight on with my favourite Addi lace circular for awhile. And hope the sloppy tension evens out with dyeing and blocking. Must. Stick. With. Sleeve.

I’ve also finished the Rock Island chart on my Black Rock Shawl and now am on the ever-diminishing garter section in the centre:

Doesn’t look like much all unblocked like that, does it? I was hoping it would be easy to knit this part without looking at it but, our sainted Elizabeth Zimmermann to the contrary, I’m not so comfortable with garter as I am with stockinette. And I need reminding which rows to do the decreases on. After getting confused (mostly because I wasn’t paying attention) I had to put a marker in the beginning of the right side. Plugging away when I get bored with Amiga’s darn sleeves.

I’m also feeling grumpy because this morning it was raining yet again. It stopped now but the garden is out of bounds until it dries up somewhat. I never got out there again yesterday while the getting was good because T-Man wanted cherries. So instead we walked all the way down to the farmer’s market to hunt for the first organic cherries of the season. We only buy produce from the market that we can’t grow ourselves so we ignore all the greens, garlic scapes, summer squashes, blueberries and raspberries and head instead for the stone fruits and root vegetables. I cannot grow a good radish or a carrot to save my life! They get tough and stunted and bug-infested and are just a waste of garden space so I no longer even try them. Along with radishes and carrots (many colours! red, yellow and white as well as orange) I bought beets (more colours!) and kohlrabi which I have also tried to grow with no luck. Sorry I didn’t take a photo. Bad blogger. Kohlrabi is another of those underappreciated veggies. Yummy raw with dip or grated in coleslaw. I never cook it.

Speaking of beets, I ate my first beet greens last night stir-fried with mushrooms, garlic scapes and orange sweet pepper and liberally doused with soy sauce. Yum. Who knew they were good as well as good for you? We also had a salad of grated pink and white beet with orange carrots. I’ve hated beets all my life and only now am I discovering that they can be quite delicious in the right recipe! Maybe it was the slimy canned version boiled to a fair-thee-well which was the only kind on offer when I was a child that turned me off for so long? I hated (English) peas for the same reason. Unless they were fresh and uncooked. I was always first to volunteer to shuck them!

It seems to be clearing up outside now but I want to go sew my tunic that I mentioned yesterday instead. I finally finished fooling with the pattern. All the fussing has inspired me to finally finish making a bodice template (or several: regular, for knits, shoulder-princess, armhole-princess) so that I don’t have to do this every single time with every single pattern. It’s getting tedious. I matched up the finished armhole with the one from my last dress and they are nearly identical anyway! So there ya go.